Denthryd was sitting around after a fine cup of kafa that morning next to the cold hearth, smoking with his feet up on another chair when a loud knock came at the door. Azuyia had for some reason prodded them to rent a one-room cottage between Pompa Concorda and the capital one evening for their last days before returning to Southall, showing up in the evening to their rooms from business in the city she had not disclosed. It had been the most tumultuous Denthryd had ever seen, and besides they had been crabbing at each other from sheer tiredness, so he didn't press her on it. She said she was making last rounds of longtime Bosmer residents in the city, and would arrange the trip home on her way, riding off with the promise that she'd not push the mare further than the Whiterun stables. Denthryd wrote in his journal and sat around all day, happy to catch a nap, pensive about the plans the two of them had made after leaving Raynu in the city three days prior. He answered the door to two armed men in the afternoon. Starting, he blinked and tried to think of a greeting.
"Uh, yes?"
"Delivery for Lady Aciaea. She here?"
The man standing in front of him looked mid to late-twenties, sunburned skin, and in riveted steel plate from neck to knee, shoulder to forearm with leather riding boots and gloves. The other one, standing next to a wagon, wore the same. Both were bareheaded and had legionnaire's marks on their faces, although the armor was Nordic with no insignia.
"Lady ... um, no. No, she isn't? May I ... help?"
"Then you look after this, we have rounds to make," he said shortly, turned, and helped the other man lift a crate wrapped in burlap and secured with buckled leather straps. They walked the crate easily into the hearth room, glanced at him a moment, then at each other, chuckled, and walked out to the carriage. With that the headed east down the road. Denthryd looked at the table-sized wrapped cube a moment. It didn't have any shipping tag on it or trade markings of any. He sat down for a half hour or so wondering about their breezy appearance and departure.
He had gone for a walk after dinner downstairs there, per usual, and greeted a family of five staying the night on their way to Whiterun and their temple of Kynareth. They had seen, they told him, the miracles of a devoted healer, and had been directed for their daughter's more serious illness to the head priestess herself. Denthryd had spent altogether too much time brooding over the coming examinations that entire week. No way I can stay here for a second candidacy, not happening, he thought walking past drying stalks of echinacea. When he walked in to the cottage, Azuyia had returned from her day.
"How goes," he started to say, pulling the robe over his head and pausing with it still on his arms as he noticed the open crate in front his seated colleague, "... it?"
"Evening, Den," Azuyia smiled at him from the table, dipping a peace of dark grain bread in a bowl of soup. The crate had been unwrapped, and its top lay on the floor in front of the table where the other two sat. Denthryd tossed his robe onto one of the two beds there in the hearth room and stared at the contents. There looked to be a full suit of plate steel armor with helmet packed inside.
"Is this what those guys brought earlier," he asked the obvious, not knowing what else to say.
"Yep," Azuyia said with her mouth partially full, "pull up a chair, brother. We have something to discuss."
